Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

With the unpredictable success of available chemotherapy treatments, there is a clear demand for a novel and effective cancer treatment. Oncolytic viruses (OVs) are viruses that are able to target and destroy cancer cells. In contrast to chemotherapy which rarely targets cancer cells only and has high off target toxicity as a treatment, OVs are selective, leaving normal cells unaffected. Despite past successes using OVs, cancer remains deadly and better medical tools are needed to fight aggressive tumours. During my PhD, I have identified that Vaccinia viruses can have better anti-cancer activities when genes responsible for virulence are deleted. Not only are these viruses safer and more cancer-targeted, they also awaken our immune system to fight tumours. Due to convincing preliminary work, I propose that we can create a superior OV compared to existing ones by screening for naturally occurring gene deletions. This project has three specific aims: (1) combining naturally occurring gene deletions into one virus; (2) testing this virus in various tumour samples to identify it's ability to kill cancer selectively; and (3) observing the effects of this candidate viruses in mouse models of cancer. Upon successful completion, we will have engineered better cancer-killing clinical tools to target tumours than have previously existed, and developed a better understanding of the biology of malignant tumours. This work has the potential to have a significant impact on cancer patients across Canada and around the world.